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"The case of Ibrahim A. has made serious system weaknesses clear"

January 1, 2019 should mark a turning point in the reintegration of offenders.

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"The case of Ibrahim A. has made serious system weaknesses clear"

January 1, 2019 should mark a turning point in the reintegration of offenders. With the State Resocialization and Victim Assistance Act, Hamburg was not only the first federal state to interlink inpatient and outpatient assistance. From then on, the 21-page document also guaranteed every prisoner in the Hanseatic city a legal right to transitional management, i.e. support from prison to a life free of punishment. "We give the people in prison a signal," emphasized the then Hamburg Senator for Justice, Till Steffen (Greens) - and explained: "We will not leave you alone."

Four years later, the law is under scrutiny, because the current case of the suspected knife attacker from Brokstedt, Ibrahim A., "has made serious system weaknesses clear - it is suitable for a textbook," says criminal and social policy expert Bernd Maelicke in an interview with WORLD ON SUNDAY. After all, it was known to the 33-year-old, who had several previous convictions, that he would be released in early 2023.

Ibrahim A. is said to have stabbed other passengers with a knife on a regional train from Kiel to Hamburg on January 25. Two young people died and five others were injured, some seriously. Shortly before the crime, the stateless Palestinian left pre-trial detention in Hamburg.

In contrast to convicted prisoners, the presumption of innocence applies to prisoners on remand like Ibrahim A., and the arrest warrant can also be revoked by a court at any time. "Because this means that the time of release is completely uncertain, a planned release management as in the case of time-specific imprisonment is impossible," explains a spokesman for the authority of Justice Senator Anna Gallina (Greens) on request. However, prisoners on remand should also receive "offers to prepare for their release", according to Section 11 of the Resocialization Act.

These are qualitatively and quantitatively not comparable with the transition management for prisoners, says the judicial policy spokeswoman for the left in the citizenship, Cansu Özdemir, to this newspaper. Nevertheless, "the incarceration should be used to take socio-structural measures for the prisoners on remand, such as arranging social assistance or therapy offers," she says.

According to information from the judicial authority, Ibrahim A. has received the offers of support provided for by law during his pre-trial detention – but that is not enough for the opposition. Özdemir says: "In the case of Ibrahim A., the social assistance was obviously limited to putting him in contact with the winter emergency program." That is insufficient, especially if the need for psychiatric care becomes apparent during detention. The execution in Hamburg is anyway "far too often pure detention".

For the prison expert Maelicke, the failures in the care of Ibrahim A. are also clear. For example, the Resocialization Act lists all the help for inmates in detail, for example when looking for an apartment or advice on addiction problems. "The law defines the responsible bodies, so there are a total of 50 public and non-profit organizations in Hamburg," explains the 82-year-old lawyer, who once steered the reform of the prison system in the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Justice. What is still missing in the Hanseatic city is an ordinance from the responsible departments of justice and social affairs, which regulates the obvious questions of coordination and cooperation.

"A law alone does not change practice - what is decisive is the process of implementation, which is motivated and designed by all specialists and managers together," says Maelicke. Because nationwide, about half of the released offenders re-offend. This specifies the tasks for a social rehabilitation law: reduce relapses by intensive and repeat offenders, i.e. improve social integration after release and thus public and personal security. In addition to Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Saarland have a rehabilitation law.

According to Maelicke, practical problems on the Elbe are expressed in the comparatively few assignments of court assistance and in the marginalization of free delinquent assistance: "In other federal states, these organizations are given more tasks both in enforcement and in assisting released prisoners; they are the crucial bridge to society and to the community.” The “resocialization network” provided for in the law should therefore not only take effect in annual conferences, but in each individual case.

In addition, the criminal and court assistance located in the social authority must be relocated to the justice department for better integration with the enforcement. Maelicke expects Senator Gallina to "put herself at the forefront of reform considerations, this could be a model nationwide".

For left-wing politician Özdemir, the consequences envisaged by Senator Gallina from the Brokstedt cause leave more questions than answers. "Instead of improving the psychological and psychiatric care of the prisoners, Gallina is relying on a purely formal solution," Özdemir criticizes. In the future, conspicuous prisoners on remand should be assessed in case conferences in order to prevent dangers. However, this has no impact on the conditions of completion. “All measures should be implemented without new personnel capacities. In view of the intensification of work in prison, this is wishful thinking on the part of the senator,” emphasizes Özdemir.

An evaluation of the Hamburg Resocialization and Victim Assistance Act is currently being carried out by the University of Hamburg. "We cannot anticipate the results," says the spokesman for the judicial authority, but the senator recently announced that the law would be optimized as part of the evaluation. In particular, the situation of prisoners on remand will be checked again - also with which offers the care can be improved.

According to the paper, the law aims to enable criminals "to lead a life of personal responsibility without further crimes" and "to protect society from crime". It remains a difficult path, as criminal expert Maelicke knows, who called for a resocialization law as part of his doctorate in 1977: "In times of dominating crises such as war in Europe, climate change and increasing crime due to the disappearance of borders, the task of reintegrating criminals and the Help for the victims of attention."

The 82-year-old lawyer is therefore demanding a commission of inquiry from the Bundestag "to optimize outpatient and inpatient rehabilitation". And before other federal states consider a rehabilitation law, "an intensive examination should be carried out to determine whether a uniform federal law is the better solution".

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